Abundant, clean energy: Why the tide is now turning in favour of nuclear power

When millions of people across the Iberian peninsula were left without power last month, the political fallout ignited debate over Europe's renewable energy agenda and fueled the rising interest in nuclear power.

- Jillian Ambrose

Europe's largest power blackout in decades, still largely unexplained, has raised questions about whether renewable energy can be relied on to provide a stable source of clean energy. It has also fueled a renewed interest in the global nuclear power renaissance already underway.

Despite long-held environmental concerns about nuclear power generation, political leaders across the globe are increasingly looking to lift restrictions on nuclear reactors or invest billions in new projects to keep pace with the fast-rising demand for low-carbon energy, which is expected to accelerate as AI data centers grow.

In Spain, the blackout has intensified a debate over the government's plans to phase out the country's remaining seven nuclear reactors by 2035. Support for the low-carbon energy source has re-emerged hand in hand with criticism of renewable energy and its potential role in the outage.

Spain's power grid relied on renewable energy for about 70% of its power at the time of the blackout, which experts believe may have made it more difficult for the energy system operator to keep the grid's frequency stable.

The suggestion was vehemently denied by the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, in parliament. Just hours after the blackout, he said: "There was no problem caused by an excess of renewable energy. Those who link this incident to the lack of nuclear energy are either lying or revealing their ignorance."

But even before the Iberian peninsula was plunged into chaos, critics of the Spanish government's anti-nuclear stance had raised concerns. A few weeks beforehand, the chair of the renewable energy company Iberdrola, which owns a small stake in Spain's nuclear fleet, had warned against the plans to shut its nuclear power stations.